The pessimism stems not only from the sense that Hong Kong's world-leading property prices – already as high as the city's many skyscrapers – can't keep climbing but also from China's economic slowdown next door.

Charles Dumas, the chief economist with Lombard Street Research, told me yesterday that he believes China's economy is growing at only 3%, not the 6.5% to 7% targeted by the government.

Many property brokers have taken to other lines of work. Anyone selling a property, as I currently am, will receive call after call from agents desperate for business. I estimate at least 15 to 20 called me, with others calling my Cantonese-speaking wife in Chinese, once they got wind of a potential deal.

These have been dim days for Hong Kong property, where the prices are sky-high. (Photograph: Alex Frew McMillan)

We are ending up selling the apartment in Kennedy Town to the sitting tenant, which only seemed fair to me. But we had two other brokers say they had clients with cheques in their hands, ready to put down the traditional 5% deposit on signing a provisional sales & purchase (S&P) agreement. Another 5% typically comes two weeks later on the signing of the official S&P.

So it's not to say that deals can't be done. In fact, after a particularly dire February, transactions gained some steam in March.

The issue, with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority restricting loan-to-value ratios on mortgages, is the downpayment. For apartments worth less than HK$10 million (US$1.3 million), a permanent resident who makes most of his or her income in Hong Kong must chalk up 40% of the purchase price – in other words, putting down HK$2 million (US$260,000) on an apartment of HK$5 million, which would be of modest size on Hong Kong island, around 500 square feet.

Anyone buying an apartment for more than HK$10 million – and there are plenty of those – must put down 50% cash. Then there is stamp duty. If you're not a permanent resident, status that requires seven years to acquire, you have to pay an extra 15% tax on the total purchase price.

That has chased virtually every temporary resident who isn't a mainland Chinese billionaire out of the market. At that rarified part of the market, though, there were 65 properties worth more than HK$50 million (US$6.45 million), according to JLL.

A home at 2 Headland Road set the record for the quarter. Just south of Repulse Bay in one of the most-exclusive neighborhoods in Hong Kong, it sold for HK$1.02 billion (US$130 million) in the first three months of the year.